Government agrees to accommodate ICTR genocide convicts

Benin has become the second country to conclude an agreement with the United Nations to accommodate in its prisons people convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the tribunal reported on Thursday. The agreement was signed by Benin's foreign minister, Antoine Idji Kolawole, and Agwu Okali, Assistant Secretary-General and Registrar of the ICTR. According to the Statute of the Tribunal, set up by the United Nations to try people accused of participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, sentences handed down by the ICTR "shall be served in Rwanda or any of the States on a list of States which have indicated to the Security Council their willingness to accept convicted persons, as designated by the ICTR." So far the only other country to have concluded such an agreement with the United Nations is Mali, although other African states and some European countries have indicated their willingness to accommodate ICTR convicts.